I stared at him, sure I’d misheard—that what had actually come out of his mouth had been something else entirely, something that made sense in the context of a positive pregnancy test and a relationship that was barely a month old.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the words coming out with more breath than voice. “What?”
Decker’s hands were still on my shoulders, his eyes still on mine, his voice still carrying that tone that expected compliance without demanding it.
“We’re going to have a baby,” he said, the statement simple but carrying more weight than its five words should have been able to. “I want to give that baby a proper home. I want that home to include you.”
My jaw was still somewhere near the floor—I had not gotten anywhere close to that thought yet. Not marriage. Not the commitment of standing in front of people who mattered and saying words that couldn’t be taken back.
“Decker,” I said, his name coming out with more force than I’d intended. “We’ve known each other for a month. We’ve been sleeping together for three weeks. This is—“ I stopped, not having a word for what this was.
“This is me telling you what I want,” Decker said, voice steady. “Not asking you to decide right now. Just telling you where I stand.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed, suddenly aware that my legs wouldn’t hold me much longer. The test was still in my hand, the two pink lines still visible through the little window, clear evidence of what had happened between us now carrying a weight I hadn’t expected.
Decker sat beside me, not crowding but not keeping his distance either. He reached over and took the test from my hand, set it carefully on the nightstand, and then took my hand in his—palm flat against palm, fingers interlaced, the warmth of him against my skin.
“Think about it,” he said, voice low enough that only I could hear it. “No pressure. No timeline. Just... think about it.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and turned my hand in his so our fingers were properly interlaced. The mountain filled the window—dark and solid and exactly where it had been when we’d faced Gerald in the yard that morning. Some things changed; some things stayed. The difference was in knowingwhich was which, and in having the patience to wait out the things that couldn’t be forced.
I let myself have that—the warmth of Decker’s hand in mine. It wasn’t a plan or a promise or anything that needed a name. It was just a moment—one of many to come—and I was exactly where I needed to be for it.
Chapter Fourteen
~ Decker ~
I drove with both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, the mountain shrinking in my rearview mirror as the foothills opened up toward town. The truck ate up the gravel road with a familiar rhythm—washboard sections, smooth patches, the occasional pothole that made the shocks squeak.
Beside me, Jasper sat with his window cracked, one hand on the dash, the other loose in his lap. Neither of us had said much since we’d pulled away from the ranch house, but the quiet between us had changed—not the careful watchfulness of the early days, but something with more room to breathe.
The courthouse idea had been mine. I’d said it the morning Jasper stood pale in the bedroom with the test in his hand—said it before I’d fully thought it through, before I’d given myself time to calculate what it would mean. “I think we should get married,” I’d said, the words out of my mouth before my brain had fully processed what I was offering.
And I’d meant it. I still did. I wanted this—wanted Jasper, wanted the baby, wanted the life we were building together piece by piece.
But meaning something and being easy about it weren’t the same thing, and I’d spent the two days since the proposal working to reconcile the two—the rightness of what we were doing and the voice in the back of my head that kept asking if I was ready, if I knew what I was signing up for, if marriage was really what either of us needed right now.
I didn’t say any of that out loud. Jasper had enough to carry without me adding my uncertainty to the load.
Instead, I kept both hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road, stealing glances at Jasper when I thought he wouldn’t notice.
He looked different than he had a week ago—his posture looser, his body angled toward the window rather than braced for whatever came next. He still had the dark circles under his eyes, the pallor that came with morning nausea, the careful way of holding himself that spoke of a body that wasn’t fully his own yet.
But he’d made a decision, and it showed—in the set of his shoulders, in the way his hand came to rest on my knee when we hit a rough patch of road, his silence that felt like choice rather than caution.
The two stops sat in the cab between us the whole drive—courthouse, then clinic—not spoken about but present nonetheless. A marriage certificate. A pregnancy confirmation. Two pieces of paper that would make official what was already true: we belonged to each other now, in ways that couldn’t be undone with words or distance or what had happened in Nebraska.
Black Butte’s main street came into view as we rounded the final curve—a four-block stretch of weathered buildings with false fronts and covered wooden sidewalks. The bakery was open, the smell of fresh bread working its way through the truck’s vents. A red pickup idled outside Harmon’s General Store, the owner leaning against the hood with a coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other. The morning light caught the wooden planks of the sidewalk, turning them gold at the edges.
The town was waking up—the kind of gradual, unhurried awakening that happened when most people had been up with the sun anyway, had done their morning chores, had already put in the first hours of a day that would stretch well past dark.
I parked directly in front of the courthouse, not bothering with the side street or the alley behind Miller’s Feed & Supply. The building was plain—brick facade, white columns, a smallpatch of lawn with a flagpole—but it carried the presence of official business, of paperwork that couldn’t be undone, of lines being crossed that couldn’t be uncrossed.
I put the truck in park and killed the engine, then sat for a beat with my hands still on the wheel. Jasper’s hand came to rest on my knee—brief and warm and gone before I could decide whether to acknowledge it.
“I’m good,” he said. “If you’re having second thoughts, we can—“
“I’m not,” I cut in, the words coming out with more force than I’d intended. “Just... making sure.”
